It isn’t often that I am browsing a list of U.K.’s best books of the year but I am all for it. Waterstones has released their list of the best books of 2025 and we will see how their list holds!

A few weeks ago, I looked at a list created by a publication in Australia and it the list has some bias. Patriotism runs strong in every country, state, and town. And that is also true for this list made by a U.K. publication.

Waterstones is a U.K. retail bookseller based in England which is owned by an American investment group. They are your overseas Barnes & Noble and now I want to step foot in one.

Their main job is to sell books and lists like these give them more eyes. But I shall ignore all that and just look to see which books made their end of year list. You can see the full list below!

WaterStones’ Best Books of 2025!

As I predicted, the list is full of books from the U.K. that will make no sense to anyone outside of it. But there are also books that readers from all around the world will recognize and agree with.

Sunrise on the Reaping and Katabasis are most fans will recognize. And I think that Katabasis made the list because R.F. Huang has written books that take place in the U.K.

But for the most part, this list is rubbish as my fellow British people would say. There are too many books that most people have never heard of. Maybe the list is too local but then how does that make these books the best books of the year?

I don’t know what metric Waterstones used but from an outsider’s perspective, this is one list I would ignore. Very few books from this list will make most end of year lists and the ones that will are the ones that are globally popular. How many of these books have you read or heard of? Let us know in the comments below!

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